Emotion: The Pendulum Swings

In terms of our very complex human emotional processes we must simply understand sometimes that the pendulum of emotion swings. It just does that and sometimes for very good reasons we may one day understand more clearly.

Emotion Strikes

We sometimes tend to worry or become upset when emotions strike. Really, there is no need to get overly annoyed or excited about it. Just observe, seek the understanding that lies beneath the emotion, beneath the thoughts that create it, and grab a hold of the feeling and the message it is truly trying to bring you.

The Pendulum Swings

It is often easier said than done, I know. But if you can learn to find that place…that space within you where you can go knowing you are safe from your emotions, you’ll not be swallowed whole or carried away by them.  You can ride the wave of certainty that for your ultimate good, you can and will master the moment whether it goes by quickly or seems to drag over-long.

Perception Changes and So Do You

Allow yourself to feel however it is you feel and know that you are going to be fine even if it doesn’t feel fine in a moment. The pendulum swings, it doesn’t stay “stuck” for long. Sometimes it only seems stuck…a perception for good reason, again.  Emotion can seem to slow or speed time.  It’s all perception, emotion isn’t you – please remember. It is just part of the experience of life here.

Let it be as it is…let you be you…you can do this.

Note:  If you struggle too much with emotion for whatever reason, please seek the assistance of a licensed trained mental health counselor.  They can make the challenging parts of your emotional journey much easier to manage.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Obscuring the Light or Finding It

Of all of the secrets of life, one key to our well-being is understanding the nature of the behavior of humanity. Through this understanding, we can come to love humanity as it is with compassion. There are those who have no concept or idea that:

• Their flame does not shine brighter by extinguishing someone else’s,
• They do not need to take the flame of another in order to shine, and
• That their flame exists and if kept from obscuring debris, can help them improve their life experience as well as keep others striving to shine and stand in their own light.

This is a tough game that the ego just cannot grasp but let us not pick on the ego too much as that has been overly done for far too long. We cannot escape this by blaming the ego and walking away. We must address this matter head on, courageously, intentionally and with much faith in our own ability to shine.

We cannot find another’s flame for them as that is not our role. Our role, in truth, is to learn to find our own flame within and identify that which has blocked it. Once we can do that, our own flame shines forth like a beacon lighting not only our path but the paths of those around us.

We are all bearers of the flame of which I speak but some of us do not yet understand what this means. It doesn’t help to call those out who have lost sight of their flame or are ignorant of its existence. We must lead way through the darkness by finding and then standing squarely in our own light. In other words, we simply live the example.

The truth is, we all can shine. We simply must just choose to, learn as best as we can how to shine our light and for those that struggle with this concept, we need to realize our role is merely to lead an example.

In summation, we are never made better by taking someone else down. When we stand together and support each other, we are stronger because we are working in alignment with our light rather than working against it.

These little things are no trivial things. Twist this spiritual concept into psychology and familial relationships, into the work-place, into your friendships and begin to understand how they may apply. By working together and supporting each other, we all shine.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo: NASA)

What Matters?

Life is fragile and tenuous. We often take it for granted as we focus on objectives, goals or just the acts of everyday living. There are so many things in this world to distract us from what is truly important for us. That thing that is so very important now, may not be of true and lasting value to us in the end.

Life is fragile and tenuous

If you think of just our physical existence, and I don’t mean to paint a frightening picture, but we live on the surface of a planet with a molten moving core. The surface levels shift, change and move on us when we least expect it wreaking havoc in our lives. Changing weather patterns bring us higher water levels and the flora and fauna are affected by the changes that we create.

We have choices to make

 There is so very much that we take for granted caught up in the things that are not of a truly valuable and lasting nature. But that is the beauty of our choice here as we live I suppose. We can wake up every morning grateful or angry. It is up to each of us to decide just how we are going to show up in our day.

As I woke up this morning I realized how far away I’ve gotten from the things important to me. The things that really matter the most. I felt a moment of regret and then realized something. Each day and in each moment we are given the unique and amazing opportunity to change our focus, our thoughts and our actions. There are no wasted moments here really because in each of those moments we learn something.

What is in focus?

 I do not wish to be carried away for moments on end by things that really don’t matter. What I wish to do is dive deeper into those things that matter most. We spend so much of our energy and time on the frustrating things we encounter and by doing so, we increase their scope in our experience. If that is the way we best learn so be it. But know that we don’t have to learn that way always.

We can learn also by focusing on the positive and beautiful aspects of our lives and put our energy there in much more abundance. I find that when I commit and then follow-through in making the time to do that, life becomes sunny and bright even in the middle of a rain storm.

There are choices to make and life to be lived

 As I pause and reflect on these thoughts come full circle for me, the regret is now gone. There’s not a single twinge left. What I feel is a gracious in-flow of gratitude and optimism for life. Life is truly amazing with all of its diversity, dichotomy, wonder and enchantment. Life! That is what I wish to focus on with all the joy in the world I can muster. What about you? What do you want to focus on?


© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

A Deadly Belief

One of the deadliest beliefs for the human psyche to hold is, “I’m not good enough.”

Now this particular belief is so very complex that likely the majority of those who hold it are not even aware that they hold it. The belief has become like an insidious form of malware hidden deep within the operating system of our consciousness.

I’m Not Good Enough!

 This belief is interesting in that originally it was given us by the outside world in some way. In part we agreed to it based on the evidence our perception was convinced was real. But it wasn’t real. The sad part is when this deadly agreement was formed between the outside world’s insistence and the internalized doubt of a fragile consciousness, it ended up rooted deeply within the psyche and began to shape our view of ourselves, direct our perceptions, assumptions and ultimately our actions.

You won’t necessarily know that you hold such an unconscious belief until you learn to spot the signs of its existence in your life. Those signs can be many and varied. From something as simple as tolerating bad behavior, abuse of any kind or routinely running into people who verbalize or in some way show us we are unworthy to becoming co-dependent or a people pleaser in defense.

 Is it true? How do you know?

 It’s a challenging life lesson to be sure but there is hope and there is help! We can learn to identify hidden beliefs by becoming very curious about what upsets us, what triggers us into codependency or people pleasing, looking at the fears we hold and our reaction to life all around us. When we realize the feelings rising within us are in part messages from somewhere within us that rejects this hidden belief, that is when the fun of eliminating the belief begins.
 
We can take these kinds of beliefs apart but we have to be courageous, we have to be strong and we have to fearlessly embrace all that seemingly frightens us deep within the inner cores of our beings. Some of us can’t do this on our own and need trained assistance to get there. So do whatever it takes to get there because when you do, when you’ve learned to heed the call of your inner being, you set yourself free from the frame of an ideal formed based on a false belief that never really had anything to do with you.

 Get Yourself Free From That Frame!

 When we find the hidden beliefs within and seek to understand them, we then can decide which ones we wish to continue learning from and which ones we don’t. When you begin to toss away the deadly belief of “I’m not good enough,” your life will change for the better. It’s not an over-night assignment from which to learn. It takes time and patience as well as a true willingness to work at it.

I have met so many souls who carry this hidden belief within them that it breaks my heart. I can see it because I too used to hold that belief and I held it until it nearly broke me. But when my world seemed to begin to break apart, I found the belief trying to get my attention all along. When I understood its source and found forgiveness and gratitude for the opportunity to learn the lesson, I was free. The rest of the surrounding lessons then become concerned with habit breaking and that is easy (says the former smoker).

Clearer Internal Vision Improves Your life. You Are Worth It!

 You must understand how amazing you truly are and you will when you find each of those things that fogs your vision and prevents you from feeling the truth. You deserve the truth, to see it, to touch it and to feel it. The mind can play tricks on you but that deep inner knowing will not. It will just continue to try to get your attention by bringing you people and situations that attract you to the most painful parts of that hidden belief until you find it, learn from it, understand it and then let it go. There won’t be any parties, trophies or awards when you let go. But you’ll be paid in something worth much, much more than any of those things – self love and self-respect. Is it worth it to try? For me, the answer was definitively YES!

Just some food for thought! Be amazing! You are that!

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

When a Cold Breeze Blows

Oh the things we miss with an untrained eye, a closed mind or a walled off heart. I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss. That is until certain things become too painful to miss.

Something as simple as a breeze and the way we react to it is a fine example. Have you ever noticed how you normally react to a chilly breeze? We usually turn our backs to it without even giving much though to the action itself. The body simply begins to move in order to protect itself.

There are people in our lives like a chilly breeze and maybe it is we who are that chilly breeze wondering why our approach finds us seeing the backs of others as they turn away.  It can be painful until we learn to understand.

Alternatively, consider a warm sunny summer breeze. Have you ever encountered one and turned directly into it as if it would fill you up with blessed beautiful light? We unconsciously will turn toward a warm and beautiful sunny breeze. It’s very natural. The body just begins to move in order to reward itself and enjoy an uplifting moment.

There are people in our lives like a sunny summer breeze or maybe it is we who are that sunny summer breeze grateful to find our approach is met by outstretched arms to greet us.

With little ability or desire to observe, so much goes unnoticed. But with even a little effort we can grow in our understanding. The cold breeze doesn’t know it is a cold breeze, it just is. The sunny summer breezed doesn’t care if it blows, it just does. But what about people who fall into these metaphorical categories? What about them?

Is there a right way or wrong way to be or to react? I don’t think so really. We will protect ourselves when necessary and shouldn’t doubt ourselves when everything in us says it’s time to turn away. We can do so with love in our hearts for ourselves and our need to protect what we hold dear. We’ll also open ourselves when necessary and shouldn’t doubt ourselves when everything in us says we shouldn’t be so open.

There are actions in this life and there are consequences. There are thoughts and judgments about all we encounter. Some of life’s greatest lessons are bound up in just the way we show up and present ourselves. Be you a cold breeze or a warm sunny one from a personality perspective, you will live and you will learn and you will teach all around you. There is merit in this teaching and learning and I for one choose to see it this way rather than in terms of what is wrong and what is right.

If you want to be embraced, seek you the company of those warm of heart and perhaps allowing them to teach you the way. You will learn from them about love. If you wish to better understand your own turning away or others that turn from you, seek you the deep well of understanding within you for there is a great life lesson afoot and you can learn if you have the desire to learn.

However you are and what ever you do, be authentically and beautifully you. Enjoy this life as it is and all of humanity just as it is as well.  Blessings.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Life: Ugliness and Beauty Through the Eyes of an Artist

There can be beauty in ugliness

From the outside, some may not think of photographers as artists but I say truly they are. Among my many creative outlets, photography is one. It requires an artistic mind to not only compose a shot but to think ahead about the light and shadows, the colors and over-all emotion of a scene we plan to capture and then there are of course the technical components of the capture.

So many of us take great pleasure in showing the beauty of life. We can zero in on the tiniest beautiful flower in a field of pure ugliness, focus in on the shot, take it and voila! We have now made something beautiful emerge from something not so appealing. The very picture I’ve posted with this article is an example.

California is in drought and nothing I do can keep my plants alive when I have to cut back on water (yes, I’m one of the few who actually follows the rules). So, my last remaining potted plant to survive the unending streams of heat waves and lack of water gifted me a few last tiny little flowers.

If I hadn’t stopped to look, I’d have missed its last hurrah. I’ll try to save it if I can because it’s so beautiful but it’s just not looking good. From this picture, all you see is the color, the set up and the vision I wanted you to see. You don’t see all the dead and withering blooms all around it. You don’t see anything other than the beauty I want you to see.

What you focus on, you create

Likewise, some of us wish to train our lens on the plight of those who struggle in the city, in sparsely populated or even overly populated areas. Even in an ugly city, an artistic photographer can capture beautiful lines in the architecture and compose the shot in beautiful harmony despite the surrounds.

This form of art is to me quite a spiritual endeavor. You see, we create sometimes from pure ugliness a work of beauty or we take the ugliness and show you hope. The artists of this world are often starving because of our love of the challenge of showing you something from another perspective. As a practitioner in metaphysics, it’s part of my job to show you the beauty that dwells deep within you and within this amazing and wonderful universe. It’s my role to show you how much power you have to paint your life like a skilled artist even when you’re dealing with the ugliness.  When I'm taking pictures, I'm reminded that we have the power to see from only certain perspectives or to show certain perspectives.

Color your world the way you want

We are the artists of our lives too. We can train our eyes on the beauty or the ugliness as we so choose. We can feel the emotion of it or ignore it. So many choices do we have. Just like the photographer who chooses carefully what he or she most wishes to convey with one perfectly timed shot. So too do you live your life whether consciously or unconsciously.

However you choose to present yourself, there will be those who will see your beauty and there will be those who see your ugliness. We all possess both to a degree as does this amazing world we live in. But, I remind you again, YOU are the artist and you get to choose how you show up here and which perspectives you will give life to. Thank you for showing up here. I challenge you to let that artistic part of your being come out every now and then and like a photographer or painter, capture something before you in your mind and study it a moment in silence and with appreciation. You can choose what you will bring out of that moment and the perspectives you will carry from it. It’s up to you and how creative you wish to be.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

You're Gonna Choke

Have Faith In Yourself and Know You Can Do it

When I was a little girl in 1976, I watched Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut perform in the 1976 Olympics in gymnastics.  I was just 10 years old but in watching them I wanted nothing more than to go to the Olympics.  Big aspirations for a ten year old kid right?!  Grandma signed me up for gymnastics at the local YMCA and with much very hard work and sheer determination, I made it to the YMCA's competition team.

As a child, I never had any fear or doubt about doing what I wanted to do.  For two years, I worked very hard and in my very last competition, out of 200+ girls in Beverly Hills, California, I placed for the first time.  No small fete considering my coach told me I was going to choke that day.  I spent my time in between events focusing in my mind performing every routine flawlessly.  My coach taught me this many times – “See it in your mind performed flawlessly-know that you can do it just the way you see it and then just do it.”  Such valuable words were these.

"You're gonna Choke."

At that last competition I was nervous and doubtful for seemingly the first time as it was the biggest gymnastics meet I had ever competed in.  There were so many people and it was throwing me off during practice.  My coach’s words that day stung when she told me I was going to choke and I was mad but I went back to her prior words – “See the performance in your head flawlessly completed, know that you can do it and then do it.”

That is exactly what I did that day.   I didn’t take first place but I placed 6^th in the all-around and in one or two other events and for me, that was just the best thing ever.  By age 12 I was very quickly growing much too tall to be a gymnast and social things were quickly becoming much more important than my 10 year old dream.  I chose to end my career as a gymnast.  I went out on a good note and I always felt good about that.

Many moons later, I had my eye on Corporate America.  Well-meaning friends and others told me I couldn’t get in because back then, I had no degree or training.  So, I researched various jobs, studied for them, talked to people, practiced what it would take to do them and then I went for it.  I visualized and practiced nailing the interview.  I got it.  I was roughly 19 when I went into Corporate America as an Administrative Assistant.  I worked for several different kinds of companies and watched the leaders of those companies.

I grew up very poor and didn’t care to continue that for the rest of my life. So, I had dreams of becoming an executive because getting into Corporate America wasn’t enough.  As I began to pursue my goal, I was told I could never be an executive because I had no degree.  I didn't let that deter me.  Again, I studied, I listened, I learned and I watched those women and men who were very successful in Corporate America.  I was promoted and promoted and promoted.  I visualized the next level, I watched those who did it successfully and I went for it and achieved level after level ultimately achieving my set goal somewhere back in 2005 or so. 

I think that many of the New Age approaches over simplify the process of attraction by saying “just see it and feel it and you’ll attract it to you."  I say that is absolutely not true at all.  If it is your path to create certain things, you will create certain things.  If you set a reasonably achievable goal, get the facts about what it will take to get there, learn what is necessary to achieve a set goal and then go about taking every step with good intent, confidence and demonstrated ability, the only thing that can stop you then is fear or doubt.

These two stories represent very different scenarios of my life that carried the same theme:  Visualizing and then achieving a goal (okay - others too but let's stick to the one easiest to get to on the surface and I'll get to the others in another post).  It’s important to remember that we’re very often NOT handed what we think we want for a very good reason.  The journey is the destination in goal achievement really.  The things I learned after I set goals and went after them are worth more than the actual goal achievement itself.  Naysayers do absolutely nothing for you but trigger the ego into fear.  Action based on fear leads to trouble eventually and you may find goals set in fear aren’t always so satisfactory once achieved.  That is also something I learned.

Life Lessons Learned

No matter what goals you set for yourself or how you go about achieving them, you’ll learn even if you seem to fail.  I have failed so many times in my life seemingly but when I step back and look at what I’ve learned to create out of nothing and when there was seemingly no hope, I am just in awe.  I have created much in my life that I’m grateful for and I wouldn’t trade a single thing.  I did realize something important though.  The goal isn’t always as important as how you get there.  I am not a wealthy woman in terms of assets and dollar signs.  But I’m infinitely rich in knowledge in terms of love, a confident knowing that I can create whatever my heart truly desires and that I can do what I love.  These are the things that create a wealth to me.

I like to look back at this picture every now and then and see a little girl raised on welfare from a broken home.  Even with everything stacked against her, she let nothing deter her - Not social status, not naysayers and not lack of much outside support.  I learned a lot in my life and will continue to and that makes me smile.  I don’t have to be the smartest, the richest or the best dressed to make me happy.  Along life’s little mini journeys I’ve learned to appreciate people, diversity, challenge and beauty.  It’s all part of a much bigger goal of getting through life.  

 

© 2015 JL Harter (photo, I believe was taken by a teammate’s parent, most likely the Wells or Dornis Family - I'm pictured standing in the back row, farthest to the left)